Introduction
So, you want to know how to get better at Turing Machine? Maybe you keep struggling against the randomised daily challenge, or you wonder how people on BoardGameArena are able to solve puzzles consistently in one or two guesses. Well, have no fear, because this Turing Machine Masterclass is here to help you improve at the game.
You see, the fact of the matter is that those players beating the game (or at least the easier setups) in one or two guesses aren’t guessing at all; instead, we’re using a combination of logic, intuition, and some lesser-known but very important rules to guarantee a quick solution.
The aim of this series of articles is to help you understand those rules, and how you can combine them with logic to analyse a Turing Machine puzzle and beat the machine every time. I’ll be releasing articles once a week for the next few weeks, and each article will use a real example setup, getting increasingly more difficult. I’ll also provide the game code so that you can use the Turing Machine website to play along at home.
As the articles are released, I’ll add links below so that you can use this page to find all the articles quickly. The first one is already available below.
Underneath the links, I’ve included five important disclaimers, which will be worth reading before you look at the first article, as they will help you to get the most out of this series.
So, join me over the next 4 weeks as we begin to scratch the surface of this brain-bending and brilliant logic deduction game!
Part 1: Two Key Principles
Part 2: Embedding The Principles
Part 3: Hard Mode – Are We Being Exclusive?
Part 4: The Jump To Expert
Part 5: Your Worst Nightmare
Disclaimer 1: I’m not going to be covering the actual rules for Turing Machine. There are some great tutorials online, and you can find a video tutorial on our main Turing Machine page here, but this article is going to assume you know how to play at a basic level.
Disclaimer 2: The best way to get better at Turing Machine is to play Turing Machine! If you feel that you’ve only just dipped your toe into the water of the game, I’d recommend you go away and play more games, then come back only when you feel you’ve got as good as you can, as we’ll be covering some more advanced techniques.
Disclaimer 3: I’ve played a lot of Turing Machine, and I like to think I’m pretty good at it. But everyone sometimes misses stuff, so as you’re reading along with this article series, you may find additional deductions that I don’t make. I retain the right to use “That deduction didn’t help to make the point that the article was trying to make” as an excuse, regardless of whether or not that was actually the reason. But if you do spot additional deductions, comment on the article and share your knowledge; it will help others to develop their own skills, and that really is the whole point of this series.
Disclaimer 4: I’m going to be referring to verifier cards using their card number, rather than letters (at least for puzzles in Classic mode). You’re probably used to referring to a verifier by using the letter it is placed next to on the verifier machine, but for practical reasons it’s easier for me just to show the cards themselves and refer to them that way.
Disclaimer 5: Some of the logic is going to get fairly advanced as we move through different setups, and if you’re playing in real time with other people, pausing the game so you can work through every option and apply advanced principles is going to really slow down the game. That said, doing these kinds of exercises with random setups can really help to train your brain to spot patterns and you’ll be able to do this quicker than you might realise. And if you’re playing online you usually get a timer so you’ll be a bit more free to work through these principles systematically.
